Help with developing a PP / Out of Camera workflow

[DonnieZ]

This is a topic I've always struggled with since I got my first digital camera about 11 years ago :

I've got all these photos, a few good, some not so good, some are throwaways. What do I do with them now?

Ultimately my "workflow" has consisted of taking the memory card and simply using the Windows import tool to get the photos on my hard disk, then look through the pictures with Windows Photo viewer (or acdsee back in the Win 98 days!) and maybe copy a couple to some type of removable media and heading down to Walgreens for some prints.

I know there's got to be more to life than this, so I'm looking for some advice. Last year I purchased Photoshop Elements 9, and I'm sure you're all familiar with its organizer function. I heard a lot about Lightroom 4 so I downloaded a trial of that. Looks a lot like Photoshop Elements organizer but seems to be a little easier to navigate to and has some features that take advantage of my dual monitor setup.

Now that I have these tools, what do I do with them? I look at a lot of the photos I take and they look OK. If I take them into Photoshop, I can play with levels and there's a broad range of settings that still make the photo look "OK". If I do any changes in Photoshop, it's usually an auto levels and if it's for the web maybe a quick resize. I don't know what to do for prints (Should I be resizing?) I can play with sliders and color curves all day but not knowing exactly where they "need to be" really is a downer.

For example, I took some family photos on a recent trip and I'd love to get some prints made. I've bene putting it off for a month now because I really want to get some type of process down. This type of thing generally happens when I take pictures anywhere. Taking the pictures is fun - once they are off the camera is where I get stumped. I'd be open to any type of recommendations - forum advice, books, videos, YouTube videos, even a class that's in the Chicagoland area.

Any advice is much appreciated!
- Don

 

[Trever1t]

Most here are going to reccommend LR4, myself included. Boy, I suck at editing but I can't imagine going from camera to print without it. Lightroom is a file handling, cataloging and editing software. I get by with 90% of my workflow with it alone. Fancy layers or actions/filters I resort to Photoshop.

Basically I import from my Card to LR--->cull (pick/select the shots I want to keep) edit and export to a folder on my drive which I can print from.


I'm going to take a gander that you shoot JPG format. You don't mention your camera but if it has the ability to record RAW format you will have much more leeway in editing to take an "OK" shot amd produce a "WOW" one.

 

[Dominantly]

I do something like:

Open the import dialog in LR (4), then adjust the settings to make sure that the files are named correctly, the exif data is what I want, and the destination folder makes sense.
Then I skim through the photos (if I haven't already done so in camera) to weed out the obviously bad ones.
Next I import (without any development settings).
Next I maximize the viewing area and go through the photos one by one, flagging the photos I like.
Once I am through all of them, I filter by "flagged", then go through them again to weed out stuff like repeat poses.
When I have narrowed it down to the for sure keepers, I go through and tweak them individually.

For editing I work my way from top to bottom. Starting off with highlights/shadows (you can do quite a bit of recovery here), then off to clarity, and tone curve (which will allow you to adjust contrast in a more controlled fashion to fix and flatness you may have gotten in the recovery). Next off to HSL. This is a very important part for me, as I use the luminance to adjust individual parts of the photo based off color (like orange and red for skin tones), and yellows for most grass/foliage.

The only time I go into CS5/6 is when I am stitching a large photo together, or if I need to do some serious sharpening, otherwise all I need is LR.

 

[IgsEMT]

1. connect camera to computer
2. open acdsee
3. import and rename to yyyy-mm-dd-filename (on multiple camera jobs this is a life saver)
4. copy the raw footage to the external drive, and make a raw disk.
4a - if I'm tired of its a late evening, view photos with acdsee and delete obvious junk
5. import the job into LR
6. while in LR if the job was shot clean then run it through with filters, adjustments, etc
7. export out of LR
8. IF NEEDS BE, open PS and edit in PS.
8a. sometimes while in LR i work with ps and then at the end don't need to go to step8

once job is completed - backup on external and back on edited on the disk
call the client in to review the images.

realistically, that is several days of a project few hrs at a time: smaller frequent periods in front of computer and more beneficial for me then long hours on one project.

 

[480sparky38 37]

Post Processing Workflow:

To start:
• Create sub-directories on hard drive
• Download image files
• Cull worthless frames (exposure way off, OOF, etc.)
• Batch Rename image files
• Batch insert XMP/IPTC data
• Insert keywords
• Create jpegs if none were taken or created in-camera
• Separate jpegs from raws into their own sub-directories
• Select & rate raw image files

Now the fun begins:
• Load a single raw file into Capture NX2
• Duplicate of original for comparison (Ctrl+D)

Then, adjust original image file if necessary:
• White Balance
• Picture Control
• Noise Reduction
• Active D-Lighting

Then on to:
• Curves
• Exposure compensation
• Contrast
• Highlight Protection
• Shadow Protection
• Saturation

Camera & Lens Correction:
• Color Moiré Reduction
• Image Dust Off
• Lateral Color Aberration
• Axial Color Aberration
• Auto Distortion
• Red Eye
• Vignette Control

Further color corrections:
• Luminance, Chroma and Hue
• Color Booster
• Saturation & Warmth

Now to adjust focus & sharpness:
• Gaussian blur
• High-Pass Filter (my favorite step!)
• Unsharp Mask

Next:
• Add grain/noise
• B&W Conversion
• Colorize
• Color Range Contrast
• Sepia
• Tint

May still need to do the following:
• Color Control Point
• Auto Retouch Brush
• Straighten / Rotate
• Crop (either freehand or specific aspect ratio) This I rarely do at this point.... I typically wait until I know what size print I'm making.

Time to:
• Save raw file (neat thing about raw.... the original sensor data is not overwritten... just the adjustments I made are added to the file. So if need be, I can always delete the steps at any time in the future and return the file to the original downloaded state!).
• Rename, adding "Sell Name" to filename and save as a Jpeg in a separate file.

Export a JPEG to GIMP for:
• Cloning any areas that need it.
• Correct Perspective Distortion.
• Crop to final aspect ratio for printing (again, typically I don't do this until I know what aspect ratio I need to print).
• Any other step that CNX2 cannot perform.


Create a resized image for posting on web.
• Add copyright info to EXIF file.
• Add watermark & create custom gradient.
• Add custom-color drop shadow.
• Rename file, go to website for uploading.

 

[IgsEMT]

Post Processing Workflow:

To start:
• Create sub-directories on hard drive
• Download image files
• Cull worthless frames (exposure way off, OOF, etc.)
• Batch Rename image files
• Batch insert XMP/IPTC data
• Insert keywords
• Create jpegs if none were taken or created in-camera
• Separate jpegs from raws into their own sub-directories
• Select & rate raw image files

Now the fun begins:
• Load a single raw file into Capture NX2
• Duplicate of original for comparison (Ctrl+D)

Then, adjust original image file if necessary:
• White Balance
• Picture Control
• Noise Reduction
• Active D-Lighting

Then on to:
• Curves
• Exposure compensation
• Contrast
• Highlight Protection
• Shadow Protection
• Saturation

Camera & Lens Correction:
• Color Moiré Reduction
• Image Dust Off
• Lateral Color Aberration
• Axial Color Aberration
• Auto Distortion
• Red Eye
• Vignette Control

Further color corrections:
• Luminance, Chroma and Hue
• Color Booster
• Saturation & Warmth

Now to adjust focus & sharpness:
• Gaussian blur
• High-Pass Filter (my favorite step!)
• Unsharp Mask

Next:
• Add grain/noise
• B&W Conversion
• Colorize
• Color Range Contrast
• Sepia
• Tint

May still need to do the following:
• Color Control Point
• Auto Retouch Brush
• Straighten / Rotate
• Crop (either freehand or specific aspect ratio) This I rarely do at this point.... I typically wait until I know what size print I'm making.

Time to:
• Save raw file (neat thing about raw.... the original sensor data is not overwritten... just the adjustments I made are added to the file. So if need be, I can always delete the steps at any time in the future and return the file to the original downloaded state!).
• Rename, adding "Sell Name" to filename and save as a Jpeg in a separate file.

Export a JPEG to GIMP for:
• Cloning any areas that need it.
• Correct Perspective Distortion.
• Crop to final aspect ratio for printing (again, typically I don't do this until I know what aspect ratio I need to print).
• Any other step that CNX2 cannot perform.


Create a resized image for posting on web.
• Add copyright info to EXIF file.
• Add watermark & create custom gradient.
• Add custom-color drop shadow.
• Rename file, go to website for uploading.

I hope you're joking

 

[JClishe]

Here's a great book to help you with your workflow: The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers: Peter Krogh: 9780596523572: Amazon.com: Books

My workflow is pretty similar to Dominantly's.

1. Import into LR, applying metadata & filename presets and global keywords, and making a backup copy to my server. Put CF card back into camera and format it
2. Review all photos 1 at a time in Luope view. Flag rejects, 2 star rating for photos I want to edit, 1 star rating for everything else (if I'm unsure to give it 1 or 2 stars I err on the side of 2, as that will ensure that it gets reviewed closer later). Also apply any individual keywords, if necessary
3. Delect rejects
4. Filter on 2 star photos and weed out similar poses / dupes. I use a dual monitor setup here to help when I have several similar photos, with Survey view on one monitor and Compare view on my main monitor. The photos I weed out get dropped down to 1 star
5. Move all 1 star photos to my server
6. Edit all 2 star photos
7. Re-rate all edited photos, upgrading my favorites to 3 stars
8. Export my favorites and send them wherever they're going to go (post online, send to model, etc). Move everything to my server

I like using star ratings as my initial filter to determine which photos to edit, and then re-rating the edited photos because when I'm finished I have a 3 star good - better - best rating system and pre-defined smart collections that they automatically fall into (3 star glamour, 3 star landscape, etc). And I can also instantly recognize the state of any photo on my PC: no stars means I haven't reviewed it yet, 1 star means it's been reviewed and needs to be archived to my server, and 2 stars means I need to edit it.

I'm probably going to add a 4th star into my workflow though, as the 3 star filter is getting pretty full.

 

[Trever1t]

I've seen it mentioned a few times already so I'll add that in Lightroom I preview 2-6 files at a time. By highlighting multiple files in the filmstrip and pressing the "N" button I am able to preview multiple files simultaniously and "flag" the keepers.

When you shoot only one frame at a time it's ok I guess to preview one at a time but if you have 300+ frames to peruse through it makes things a lot easier, not to mention comparing similar frames side by side.

 

[480sparky38 37]

I hope you're joking

Not one bit.

 

[JClishe]

When you shoot only one frame at a time it's ok I guess to preview one at a time but if you have 300+ frames to peruse through it makes things a lot easier, not to mention comparing similar frames side by side.

I can get through flagging / rating a 500 frame shoot in about 20-30 minutes using the workflow I described, it goes pretty quick. I only get into side by side compares on the similar frames that I've flagged for editing, so that might be like 5% of the frames of the total shoot.